Russian propagandists have published a recording of a “conversation between four senior German officers”. In it, they discuss the possible supply of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. The recording is authentic, the Bundeswehr has since confirmed. “This is a very serious matter and that is why it is now the subject of a very meticulous, in-depth and rapid investigation,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

On Friday afternoon, a half-hour recording of the conversation, which reportedly dates to Monday, Feb. 19, circulated on Russian propaganda channels. Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia’s state broadcaster RT, then published the recording. She did not say how she obtained it.

It concerns a meeting that was held between Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz and three officers using the platform Webex for videoconferencing (!), writes ‘Die Welt’. During the conversation in Singapore, the four senior officers could be heard discussing the theoretical possibilities of deploying German Taurus missiles, apparently in preparation for a briefing to the German government. They talk about the challenges that a delivery of such missiles to Ukraine entails.

Scholz

The four officers do not assume that German soldiers should necessarily be sent to Ukraine for this. However, this is exactly what Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly used as a reason for not supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine. According to him, Germany would thus be dragged into the conflict.

The officers also talk about the training of Ukrainian pilots and share technical details about missile systems. They also discuss several targets that the Ukrainians could attack with the Taurus – including ammunition depots and the Kerch Bridge (or Crimean Bridge), a key supply route for Russia-occupied Crimea.

What would make the publication of the recording even more painful for Berlin is that the participants in the call also discuss details about deliveries of Scalp long-range missiles by France and the United Kingdom.

“If this story is true, then this would be a highly problematic incident,” Konstanin van Notz, chairman of the parliamentary committee that monitors the secret services, told the newspapers of the RND group.

Singapore

It’s unclear how the Russians got the shot. One of the officers taking part in the interview is staying in a hotel in Singapore at the time. It is conceivable that he was bugged there, that his phone was compromised or that he dialed in via an unsecured Wi-Fi network.

Given that it was Russian propagandists who sent the audio recording into the ether, it seems obvious that Russian secret services are behind it.

German Chancellor Scholz promises quick clarification on the Russian publication of a recording of a conversation among German air force officers about support for Ukraine. “This is a very serious matter and that is why it is now the subject of a very meticulous, in-depth and rapid investigation,” he said after an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Damage Mitigation

The Bundeswehr tried to limit the damage on Friday by blocking accounts on X that distributed the recording in Germany.

The German Ministry of Defense is investigating whether the communications of the air force are being tapped by the Russians. “The German Military Counterintelligence Service (BAMAD) has initiated all necessary measures,” a ministry spokesman said.

The question of how secure the Bundeswehr’s internal communications are via unencrypted platforms such as Webex may be raised now that the audio recording has been found to be authentic. It is also possible that other communications were intercepted by the Russians.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had requested a statement from the German government, following the reports about the conversation. “Attempts to avoid answers will be interpreted as an admission of guilt,” said Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian ministry.

Source : DPG Media

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Berlin (2/3 – 62.50).           

Lt. Gen. Alfons Mais says the €100 billion committed by the government last year is insufficient. Meanwhile, an association representing soldiers says the Bundeswehr turnaround needs to speed up.

Germany would have to spend more money on its armed forces if it wants it fully equipped, army chief Lieutenant General Alfons Mais said on Sunday.

He told the German news agency, dpa, the €100 billion ($107 billion) to speed up the modernization of the armed forces promised by Chancellor Olaf Scholz after Russia invaded Ukraine was not enough. 

Mais, caused a stir last year when he criticized what he described as years of neglect in the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr,  “the army that I have the duty to lead, is more or less bare,” he said at the time. 

Mais said one year on he was trying to refrain from using the term “bare.”

“I see a great deal of pressure to move forward with the replenishments at the greatest possible speed,” he said.

But in addition to replacing equipment that has been given to Ukraine, a “material increase towards full equipment” was important, Mais stressed. “However, the special fund alone will not be enough to achieve this,” he warned. 

German military not changing fast enough, soldiers say

His sentiments were echoed in a separate interview the head of the independent Armed Forces Association (DBwV), Colonel Andre Wüstner, did with Bild am Sonntag.

He told the mass-market weekly paper there has been “no noticeable improvement” for soldiers since Scholz made the announcement last year.

“More speed is needed, whether in terms of material, personnel or infrastructure, a real turnaround that can be felt in the troops is needed during this parliamentary period … otherwise the ‘turning point’ is over,” Wüstner said.

Wüstner added the German military, or Bundeswehr, is carrying out its assigned missions, “but that is nothing compared to what we will have to contribute to NATO in the future.”

He warned that none of the military hardware supplied to Ukraine had been replaced and that means the operational readiness of parts of the military, such as it artillery, “continues to decline.”

Germany committed to ramping up military spending

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year Scholz announced a “turning point” that would trigger weapons shipments to a nation at war and a massive increase in Germany’s military spending.

Bundeswehr officers have complained for many years that Germany has been neglecting its ability to defend its country and its NATO alliance partners.

Since announcing the €100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr, about €30 billion has been committed to contracts for specific projects, Defense Ministry spokesman Arne Collatz said Wednesday.

Opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union, whcih held power for 16 years before the Scholz government, complained during a parliamentary debate earlier this month that “large parts of the so-called ‘turning point’ that you described here on February 27 last year so far are happening largely on paper in Germany.”

Merz said it was unacceptable that “practically no orders” had yet been placed, particularly for ammunition.

Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, has, however, vowed to speed up arms procurement and ramp up ammunition supplies.

Scholz, in a speech to the Munich Security Conference last weekend, also again promised to push Germany’s defense spending up to 2% of GDP “permanently.”

But his defense minister wants to go even further, “We will reach the 2% target, but we will also make every effort to go beyond that,” Pistorius told the same conference. lo/sms (AP, AFP, dpa)

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In a interview with DW, Left party lawmaker Gökay Akbulut decried “arbitrary rule” in Turkey after she was briefly detained at Antalya Airport. She said she plans to visit the country again and will not be intimidated.

German lawmaker Gökay Akbulut, who was recently put under brief arrest in Turkey, told DW in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that there is no rule of law in the country.

“The rule of law has not been in place in Turkey for years. The separation of powers is also not functioning as it should in a progressive or in an advancing democracy,” Akbulut said, referring to Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.

“I think it is an arbitrary rule. It is a state of injustice in which presidential power is being expanded more and more,” she added, while noting that the government is pursing “unlawful” measures based on decree and individual decisions.   

When was Akbulut arrested?

The Turkish-born politician was detained at Antalya Airport on August 3, where she discovered there was a warrant out for her arrest on accusations of spreading terrorist propaganda.

The arrest, which was issued by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in the central province of Kayseri, was due to social media posts she made in 2019.

In that year, Turkey underwent a military offensive against Kurdish militia groups in northern Syria. At the time, Akbulut criticized the operation on her social media accounts. Akbulut herself is of Kurdish heritage and has urged Germany to reverse its ban on the activities of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which is regarded as a terrorist group by both Turkey and the EU.

A ‘diplomatic crisis’ resolved within hours

Akbulut, who belongs to the socialist Left party (Die Linke) in the Bundestag, described the extensive efforts made by Germany’s Foreign Office to secure her release earlier this month. 

She said the Foreign Office probably engaged in extensive talks, with German officials also taking part in high-level discussions “with the Turkish Minister of Justice and also the Turkish Ministry of the Interior.”

“So it was a diplomatic crisis that was then resolved in a few hours,” Akbulut said. “And then at last it was official that the arrest warrant against me had been lifted.”  

Akbulut not afraid of going to Turkey again 

Akbulut is a member of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag. Lawmakers in that group are expected to take part in an official trip to Turkey in October.

“Yes, definitely!” Akbulut replied when asked if she would also go on the trip.

She said she would not be “criminalized” or “intimidated” and noted that she had worked for years in the group to improve German-Turkish and EU-Turkish relations. Akbulut also said she is a contact person for those in the Turkish opposition, civil society and media. 

At the same time, Akbulut shared the view of the German Federation of Journalists that media workers who have criticized Turkey should refrain from traveling to the country. She reiterated that the Turkish government is acting in a “arbitrary way” and advised critics to prepare before traveling there.

“One should definitely not enter Turkey without any preparation,” Akbulut warned, saying this means hiring an attorney and looking to other types of support. “Otherwise it can end up getting very bad quickly, such as in my case.”

Nonprofit organization Reporters Without Borders has ranked Turkey 165 out of 180 countries as of this year in regards to press freedom, saying authoritarianism is gaining ground in Turkey and “challenging media pluralism.”

US watchdog Freedom House, meanwhile, has classified Turkey as “not free” and said the country has “shut down more than 1,500 foundations and associations” since 2016. 

Source: DW

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On June 20, after meeting with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced Germany’s recent endorsement of Kazakhstan’s efforts to create alternative trade routes and transport corridors to Europe while bypassing Russia. Steinmeier declared that such measures would further prevent the Kremlin’s ability to evade sanctions via Kazakhstan (Svoboda, June 20). However, Moscow’s moves to redirect trade through a new corridor that would circumvent Kazakhstan pose a challenge to Astana’s ambitions (see EDM, 5 July).

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both local governments, neighboring foreign states and international institutions have invested much effort and money in designing and then building regional and intercontinental trade routes. Regardless of where they originate, all of these plans are inextricably tied to the sponsors’ geopolitical as well as economic interests. Consequently, they invariably have become elements of bilateral, regional and international contestation. These plans have long served to bring together Asian, European and Central Asian states, including Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics (Unescap.org, accessed July 19).

Throughout history, Central Asia has been at the crossroads of civilizations and trade routes. Its strategic location has attracted the attention of various empires and powers seeking to control the potentially lucrative corridors between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. As a significant part of the Great Silk Road, Kazakhstan’s cities not only served as transshipment points for commodities traveling from China to Europe but also actively participated in joint production and trade, as well as the interchange of cultural values ??and ideas (Russian.people.com.cn, November 29, 2013; EL, March 18, 2017).

Therefore, it is unsurprising that such maneuvers have become a long-standing element in Central Asia’s international politics—not least in Kazakhstan, due to its geographical location as a link between Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, as well as Russia and China. For example, for the first time, in June 2023, Kazakhstan signed a series of agreements with Azerbaijan to bring energy and other natural resources and minerals through the Caspian and Azerbaijan to the Caucasus and European markets, which are eager to obtain these imports (Astana Times, June 22). Not least in these matters is the fact that these agreements bypass Russia thereby marking another step toward Kazakhstan’s economic and political independence from Putin’s Russia (Eurasianet, June 28).

These agreements are part of a larger grand design for Astana. Recently, Tokayev suggested that the German government could replace embargoed Russian oil with Kazakhstani oil (Radio Azattyk, June 3). He suggested that Kazakhstan could increase its exports of oil by 600 percent to Germany and presumably German-operated, but not Russian-owned, refineries in Germany could increase their capacity from 90,000 to 200,000 tons by the end of 2023 and then 900,000 to 1 or 2 million tons annually in the near future. Likewise, Italy is already importing oil from Kazakhstan, increasing its share of imports from 28 percent in 2022 to 38 percent in 2023.

These trade contracts clearly represent significant efforts by Astana to diversify its foreign economic relations. For example, Kazakhstan has signed accords with Beijing to enhance energy flows to China, and the aforementioned agreements with Azerbaijan likewise speak to that ambition (Kursiv.media, May 18; Upstream, May 19). Indeed, recently, the European Union has announced its intention to import “critical goods” from Kazakhstan via the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, bypassing Russia (Kursiv.media, July 4). These goods include lithium, cobalt, titanium and other rare earth metals vital to the contemporary global economy, as well as defense manufacturing. For the EU, this is explicitly about reversing its excessive dependence on China and Russia for such goods; thus, its geo-economic and geopolitical intentions are clearly and openly stated.

Kazakhstan has also repeatedly criticized Moscow’s war against Ukraine, something Putin and his subordinates will not soon forget (Tengrinew.kz, June 20). And one way Moscow can get back at Astana is to exclude Kazakhstan from newly proposed trade routes running from Central Asia through the Caspian to Russia (see EDM, July 5). This trade route from the Turkmenbashi Seaport in Turkmenistan to Astrakhan on the Caspian has been on the table for several months. Clearly, it represents an attack on Kazakhstan, with the Kremlin alleging that Astana is blocking other Central Asian traders from exporting their wares.

Russian sources also allege that this planned trade route is linked to Moscow’s ambitious north-south transit project to connect Russia, Central Asia, Iran and India and could lead to the mutual supply of dual-use goods among its members (Orda.kz, July 7). It also appears that Uzbekistan, which has been much quieter, though nonetheless unhappy about the war, and has recently improved ties with Russia, was strongly lobbying for this trade route to avoid its own excessive dependence on Kazakhstan (Ratel.kz, July 12). Thus, this corridor, along with the others proposed by Kazakhstan, reveals the intertwining of economic and political motives for strategically critical region ranging from Europe and the Caucasus to Central Asia and China.

India can also be included among these states, a proposed beneficiary and terminus of the projected north-south route and a state with its own active program to build trade with Central Asia and major European markets (ORF, February 2020). Indeed, China has consistently sought to minimize Indian exposure to those trade routes and markets as part of its own long-standing efforts to suppress India’s rise to the status of a great power (Nikkei, January 29).

Undoubtedly, as India, China, Russia and smaller but nonetheless critical regional actors strive to expand their economic and political influence globally, and Europe seeks to develop viable and long-lasting trade routes with Asian markets, the contestation over these corridors will grow. This rivalry will not be confined to Kazakhstan but will engage every Central Asian state for years to come, as the countries in the region are entering a period of enhanced trade and geopolitical rivalries. Therefore, the struggles and rivalries depicted here will be part of the regular agenda and landscape of international affairs in both their political and economic dimensions in Central Asia for the indefinite future.

Source: Yahoo

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